Fairly quiet week, all things considered

LWR saw two releases and two intakes last week, with birds being moved around to allow for flight conditioning.

Thursday the two juvie barred owls were released. I’d been contacted earlier in the week by FWS to see if I had any pending releases, as a former county official in a neighboring county had terminal cancer and had participating in a raptor release on his bucket list.  The man’s wife originally said she was going to get the press to be present, so I’d contacted DNR, too, so both my supervising agencies could get good PR from this release. However, the man apparently asked his wife to forego the press, but she didn’t notify me, so shortly before the release my yard looked like I was being raided, with three DNR vehicles and a FWS vehicle lined up and representatives from both agencies gathered in the yard. I couldn’t stop snickering about it.

When I found out that the man had asked for no press, I also refrained from taking photos of him as he witnessed one release and opened the box for the second release. I did, however, snap the usual post-release shots of the owls.

Thanks to Thomas Payne of FWS and Bob Sargent, Austin Biggers, and Greg Nelms of DNR for showing up and traipsing through the woods with us in the heat.

Earlier in the week, a juvie Coop came in, partially paralyzed and producing black, tarry poop shortly after intake—a sure sign of internal injuries. He was euthanized humanely.

And Saturday a recently-fledged—as in probably the day before—blue jay came in after being attacked by a cat. He has no injuries but is still not a happy camper, poor fellow.

With the barreds’ release, both red tails were moved into the raptor flight. The juvie female is loving the space to fly; the second-year male with soft-tissue damage isn’t attempting flight yet. That gal is feisty and an aggressive hunter, too; I’ve started tossing her mice in the air to watch her grab them as they hit the ground. It’s hysterical. The male is calmer, perhaps because he’s a year older.

With the male red tail out of the mini-pen, the MIKIs were moved into it. After an entire afternoon of disconcerted “pit-pewing” from them, they settled down and seem to be enjoying their new digs.

The injured cat-attacked catbird didn’t survive. The poor thing struggled and struggled, and just as I’d decided to euthanize, she checked out on her own, between feedings.

The uninjured catbird has started sorta kinda self-feeding: He picks up the mealworms, tosses them around, and maaaaybe eats one or two before demanding that he be fed. It’s a learning process!

And Poe the crow, despite his leg issues, has started perching some. You can see in a couple of the photos below that we’ve “braced” his legs with vet wrap, as he had pretty bad splay leg. We’ll keep moving them closer together every few days, as it seems to be working well thus far.